


Caste sketches

by stripeysheepsocks



Series: Dendritica [2]
Category: immunology - Fandom
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-27
Updated: 2020-08-27
Packaged: 2021-03-06 18:07:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 652
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26133181
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stripeysheepsocks/pseuds/stripeysheepsocks
Series: Dendritica [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1897240





	Caste sketches

T - Most of the T-cells were rude and boisterous starting out. Every T-cell dreamed of being chosen by one of the attractive APCs and going to go fight glorious battles; the fact that 90% of them would never see action did nothing to reduce their sense of self-importance.

Mycobacteria - The bacterial invaders that Dendra caught and helped kill were unusually sturdy and had a dangerous habit of cocooning themselves. Dangerous for leukocytes, that is. The mycos would glare balefully from their cocoons until the leukocyte let her attention wander and then they broke out, and not infrequently tried to take Macros hostage when the macros showed up to eat them. It was terrifyingly like a Viral; despite the slower speed of mycos, it was perhaps even more horrifying to see a macro slow down and myopically peer about while the mycos inside spun and glared and remained adamantly alive. Nothing was supposed to survive Macros, and for a simple bacterium to do so was an affront to nature, obviously. No one ever mentioned the quiet voices that everyone heard on occasion, the voices of mitochondria that quietly and apparently happily resided in the body of every cell in the 'verse.

Mitochondria - a symbiotic creature, which colonized all of Life uncounted worlds ago. Its resemblance to Mycos is rarely if ever brought up, and then only in a hushed whisper. There are superstitions that one does not presume on the mitochondria to ever be entirely on one's side, but the fact that they are is considered to be one of the greater miracles. Some cells make a great fuss over their mystical attachment to their mitochondria and claim to be able to communicate with them directly; this tends to be the neurons, who assume they can communicate with ANYBODY, an assumption that would be challenged by any peripheral cell that has ever had to deal with one. Cardiac cells, oddly enough, are probably the most in touch with their mitochondria, but they are such a cultish, self-absorbed group that not many people can get enough of a conversation going to find this out. But if you were to talk to a Cardia, or a team of them as they tend to hang out in huge groups in between their intensive sessions (they are basically the fanatic members of Crew), they would laugh in your face and tell you that the main thing mitochondria are interested in is oxygen and juggling their electrons; the rare cell that has reached a nirvana level state of meditation could tell you that mitochondria willingly gave up their independence so they could focus wholly upon this mystic art, and that the actual process of electron juggling is so abstruse that the only ones who actually understand it (aside from mitochondria) are the teams of neurons in the ethereal zones, and basically no one talks to them aside from other neurons. The peripheral neurons are much less interested in this sort of navel gazing, as they have their own navel-gazing to do, and rarely let anyone forget it.

Enterocytes - the true subsistence hedonists. They are probably the most commonly attacked, and so they have a rather cavalier attitude toward life, and the fact they have access to all of the food has led to hedonism of the first degree. They think almost exclusively of what is coming past them; they are like treasure hunters who having no sooner discovered a new trove are already thinking about the next one. It will be even better than this one, they say. They do tend to be very generous, being mostly interested in getting rid of the things they gather, though they hold back the most readily available bits for their own consumption. To be honest, though, most cells don't really care for the unfiltered spoils of the river. They would rather get the neatly processed stuff that has come through Hepata.


End file.
